Prologue Notes

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Chapter Analysis
Prologue

  • Ethan Frome descriptions:

    • "Ruin of a man"
    • "Striking"
    • "Great height"
    • "Careless powerful look"
    • "Lameness checking each step"
    • "Bleak"
    • "Unapproachable"
    • "Stiffened"
    • "Grizzled"
    • Looks like an "Old man"- Only 52
    • "Lanky"
    • "Jerk of a chain"
    • Everyone knew him
    • "Only on rare occasions" did anyone "Detain him" by speaking- He views conversation as an inconvenience
    • "He would listen quietly"
    • "Looks as if he was dead and in hell now"
    • "Been in Starkfield too many winters"
    • "The smart ones get away"
    • "It's always Ethan done the caring"
    • "Silent"
    • "Low tone"
    • "Too many winters"
    • "Hindered"
    • Really poor
    • "Seemed part of the mute melancholy landscape"
    • "Incarnation of its frozen woe"
    • "Bound below the surface"
    • "Slightly aggrieved at his own ignorance"
    • "Simple and Straightforward"

  • What was the "Smash-up"?
    • 24 years ago
    • Made him look the way he does now
    • Gave him a "red gash" on Ethan's forehead
    • Made his right side "Shortened and warped" so walking was a "visible effort"
    • "More'n enough to kill most men. But the Fromes are tough"
    • bad "Beyond the common measure"

  • Ethan's Post Office Visits
    • Punctual, every day at noon
    • "Seldom received anything" more than a newspaper
    • Occasionally got medicine addressed to Mrs. Zeena.

  • Starkfield
    • "Winter shut down on Starkfield"
    • "Under a sheet of snow"
    • "Pale skies"
    • "Nearest habitable spot"
    • The narrator found a "Grim satisfaction in the life"
    • "Vitality of the climate"
    • "Deadness of the community"
    • "Blazing blue sky"
    • "White landscape"
    • "Intense glitter"
    • "Sluggish pull of Starkfield"

  • Mrs. Ned Hale
    • "Middle aged widow"
    • Gossiped, but was surprisingly unwilling to talk about Ethan
    • "Unexpectedly reticent"
    • "Insurmountable reluctance to speak of him or his affairs"

  • Ethan's Ride with the Narrator
    • "Drove in silence"
    • "Bronze image of a hero"
    • Spoke in "Monosyllables"

  • Ethan's House
    • "Hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by the weight of the snow"
    • "Solitary roof"
    • "Bare branches"
    • "Starved apple trees"
    • "Like animals pushing out their noses to breathe"
    • "Landscape lonelier"
    • "Distress and oppression"
    • "Plaintive ugliness"
    • "Broken-down gate"
    • Had to take down "The L", which is like the heart of a house

  • Ethan's Mother's illness
    • Rheumatism
    • Stopped moving
    • When the roads rerouted to pass her house she suddenly felt better and went to talk to them
    • When the traffic left again, she went back to her solitude and died
  • Inside Ethan's House
    • A woman's voice "Droning querulously"